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Technology & Engineering

Hertha Ayrton

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Who

Hertha Ayrton · Technology & Engineering

What

Electrical engineer and mathematician; first woman elected to the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Hughes Medal 1906 for her work on the electric arc and on sand ripples

When

28 April 1854, Portsea, England — 26 August 1923, London, England

Where

United Kingdom

Biography

Hertha Ayrton is recognized among Jewish contributors to Technology & Engineering — Electrical engineer and mathematician; first woman elected to the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Hughes Medal 1906 for her work on the electric arc and on sand ripples

How & why

Hertha Ayrton was the third child of Levi Marks, a Polish Jewish watchmaker who had fled Tsarist Poland; she was brought up Jewish. Her research explained the hissing and instability of the carbon arc lamp, then the formation of ripples in sand, and in the First World War she designed the Ayrton fan used to clear poison gas from trenches. She was the first woman elected to the Institution of Electrical Engineers, in 1899, and in 1906 received the Royal Society's Hughes Medal.

Sources & external links

Verify and go deeper with these external references.

Source: Wikipedia — Hertha Ayrton

Contributions & Sources

Electrical engineer and mathematician; first woman elected to the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Hughes Medal 1906 for her work on the electric arc and on sand ripples

1906

Source: Wikipedia — Hertha Ayrton